time to lock up
by Anrheithwyr
Summary: Tom is about to finish locking up the Leaky Cauldron for the night when he hears a knock at the door. Apparently, the tavern owner has some guests to entertain.


_**Dark themes in the later half, mentions of torture and death. **_

…

"Did you lock up yet, dear?" Natasha asked her husband of thirty-three years, giving the kitchen one last glance. "Tom? Did you lock up yet? _Tom?_"

She peeked around the kitchen door with a fearful glance, hoping that she was not about to see her husband's body strewn across the floor, or Death Eaters with their wands shining in her face.

"Boo!" cried a voice, and Natasha jumped, hand flying to her chest as she shrieked, turning to stare at the man behind her, who was grinning like a maniac.

It was her husband, standing by the sink, grinning like a maniac so that she could see every individual crease in his worn, aging face.

"I hate it when you do that." She said, shoving Tom, who only laughed and leaned in to peck her on the cheek, letting his hand rest on her shoulder for a second, clearly meant to be a calming gesture. "You're such an idiot, really, Tom. You _scared _me. I thought something had happened to you."

"Well, that was clearly a misunderstanding," Tom replied with a laugh as Natasha moved around him to hit the switch on the wall, letting the lights in the kitchen fall dark. "We sure were busy today, weren't we? I think at least half of my old class was around at some point today? Something happen that I didn't notice?"

"Like I'm ever out of this damn place either?" Natasha replied in a teasing voice, letting her husband follow her into the main dining room, where their youngest daughter, Charlotte, was finishing collecting the last of the cutlery.

Plates and cups floated with soft clinks into her tray likes moths to a flame, and, having noticed her parents enter, Charlotte set the tray down by the back sink.

It was about half an hour to midnight and the Leaky Cauldron had only finally managed to close its doors twenty minutes prior, when Tom had finally swept out the last of the drunks, begging them off with the excuse of his daughter's birthday tomorrow.

And it _was _her birthday tomorrow, when Charlotte would finally turn twenty-one, the age that her parents had agreed was finally old enough to go out into the world to discover what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.

Charlotte loved the Leaky Cauldron and she loved her parents, but England had begun to grow dark these past few years, with whispers of dark lords and hate movements growing just under the surface; she intended on leaving for America in a week, and Tom was reluctant to see her go.

"Where are the others, Lottie?" Natasha asked her daughter, referring to Charlotte's older siblings, Norris and Beatrice, as well as Norris' pretty young wife and two little children.

"Upstairs, no doubt, pretending to sleep, when in reality, they're just so excited to see me wake up tomorrow to a big pile of presents." Charlotte grinned at her mother.

"Mhmm," Natasha replied, and moved to kiss her daughter's forehead when there was a loud knock on the front door.

Natasha frowned, looking over at Tom, who shrugged. It wasn't uncommon for slightly drunk patrons to come wandering back over, unsure of where they were or how to get home.

"Charlotte, keep your wand out," Tom told his daughter, before turning to Natasha with a concerned look. "I'm sure it's nothing, but can you just run upstairs and get Norris. And stay with the kids, okay? I don't want you getting hurt, in case this turns out to be bad news."

Normally, Tom didn't mind Natasha helping to keep unruly and unwanted visitors from causing too much trouble, but with a potential war brewing, Tom didn't want his Muggle wife to be left out in the open where anyone could hurt her.

If anything happened to Natasha, the love of his life, Tom thought he might go mad.

The knocking at the door grew louder, and Tom sighed, slipping his wand from his pocket and holding it aloft, letting the tip glow so that he could see. At fifty-three, his hips were beginning to get bad and it was now a frequent occurrence that he struggled to get through his inn.

"I'm coming! Give me a moment!" he called as the knocking turned very aggressive; Tom was beginning to think that the person on the other side was a little bit more dangerous than a rambunctious drunk come to call a bit too late at night.

He recalled the newspapers that his son, Norris, had been bringing by in the past few weeks, the one that talked about groups of cloaked and robed men who broke into homes to torture Muggles and muggleborns.

The thought made his throat grow dry and he paused, wondering if opening the door to strangers who might wish him and his family harm was a strong possibility, should he answer the abusive knocking outside of the Leaky Cauldron.

"Open up!" demanded a sharp voice from outside, and Tom could see a green glow from under the door and shining through the murky glass. "Thomas Boot, we demand that you open up _right _now, or else you will suffer the consequences."

"Might I at least know who has come to call at such an hour before I let them into my house and home? After all, there are young people here who need their sleep, and we can't have strangers storming about downstairs, waking them up."

"You'd do better to let us in right away, Mr. Boot, before one of my companions here has to blast your doors open. Besides, you've read the papers, haven't you? You know what we have come here to do, Mr. Boot, don't play the fool with us."

The voice on the other side of the door was cold and unfeeling, and when Tom turned back to look at Charlotte, he could see the fear in her eyes.

The others, Norris and his wife Elizabeth, and Tom's middle child, Beatrice, were all standing on the balcony, looking down with concern as Tom moved to unlock the door.

Twenty men, all wearing dark robes and cloaks, swarmed into the Leaky Cauldron just as Natasha came back, and one of the men raised their arm, wand flashing with green light as Tom roared to his wife to _run_, get out and leave.

She didn't make it two steps before slumping by the staircase, her body crumpling like a marionette that had lost its strings.

Charlotte began to cry loudly and ran over to her mother's body, but her tears were cut short by another bright green light, and then suddenly, she was sprawled across Natasha, almost as though she had just fallen asleep where she stood.

Tom closed his eyes, wand slipping from his fingers as he heard screaming and saw lights flashing through his eyelids.

He heard the sound of his son yelling and then silence; he heard Beatrice say something about grabbing the children, and then her voice was gone.

He heard the sound of a body hitting the floor as though from a great height, and when he opened his eyes, Elizabeth was only feet away from him, neck twisted into a terrifying angle.

There was blood on the floor near where Natasha laid, and he could see that limbs were missing, her face and chest cut open, with her clothes strewn across the floor of the Leaky Cauldron.

Something swung at Tom, hitting him in the head, and he felt the skin split, forcing Tom to groan and press his hands against his forehead, feeling the blood pool in his cupped palms.

And then he saw them: his two young grandchildren, the babies. Brenton, who was barely even nine years old, who scooted after Tom and babbled nonsensically, always with a smile on his face. And little Kayleigh, who was just two and a half, the light of his life.

They were floating in the air, being held aloft by one of the cloaked men, who seemed to be chuckling as he made Kayleigh cry out, arms searching for her mother.

"Please leave them be," Tom begged the man, trying to crawl over, but someone else chucked a chair at his legs, and Tom fell against the blow, still begging. "Please, they're just babies. _Please_."

The man turned to Tom and let his wand drop a little, causing Brenton to be dashed against the floor, his cries silencing immediately.

He dropped his wand some more, faster this time, and Tom watched in horror as Kayleigh was thrown against the wall and then dropped, hurtling downwards faster than anyone should ever move.

"No!" Tom yelled as he watched the little girl fall to the ground; he hurried over to clutch his granddaughter's body, sobbing, and her limp body was nothing more than empty weight in his arms as Tom struggled to not grasp his wand and take out every single one of these…

_Death Eaters_. There were Death Eaters in the Leaky Cauldron and his family was dead. Tom couldn't stop crying, holding the little two year old to his chest as the tall, cloaked men kicked at chairs, shattering plates as they moved around him.

"Why?" he asked of one of the figures, reaching over with a weak hand to grasp at the end of a robe. "Why? Why? They did nothing…they did nothing. _My family_, why? Why? _They were my family_, why did you do this? How…how…what did we ever do?"

"Out of my way, filthy scum." The man demanded in a cold, harsh voice, kicking at Tom's hands so that he let go, his granddaughter tumbling from Tom's grasp. "You say you did nothing, but the evidence is right there in your arms. _Muggle scum_, that's what they are."

"No," Tom murmured, barely even noticing the blood dripping down his forehead where he had been struck. "No, no, they're half-bloods. Wizards, I promise, they have magic. _Please, _they have magic, they aren't Muggles."

"But she is," the man replied, pointing towards Natasha's bloody but cooling body, which was heaped atop Charlotte.

Tom began crying even harder at the sight of his younger daughter, recalling the fact that today was her twenty-first birthday. They were going to be having a party for her later, and then Charlotte was going to prepare for her Portkey to America.

And now everyone was dead. His whole family; his beautiful wife and his talented children and his little grandchildren, who were still so full of potential and life.

They were all dead, and the killers were currently ransacking the Leaky Cauldron, laughing and tossing things as Tom struggled to make sense of _why_.

They had killed his family simply because Natasha was a Muggle, simply because Tom had had the audacity to marry her and love her and raise a family with her.

His whole family…Tom curled into a ball as his entire home was destroyed around him, everything he knew and cared about damaged and attacked.

Tom couldn't seem to force himself to move or make any sort of noise, only able to sob quietly, surrounded by his fallen family, who had been struck for something out of their control, simply because of who they had been born to.

"Please…" he whispered in a hoarse voice as one of the men moved closer to him, holding his wand aloft so that it was pointed at Tom's head.

Tom honestly didn't think he could have raised his own wand, had he been able to find it, and so he was only able to stare at the approaching cloaked man with a pleading glance.

"Please, please just kill me. I can't live without them, not without my family. Please, if you have any mercy, you'll let me die. Please."

The man only shifted positions, holding the wand a little lower, so that it would strike Tom in the chest, rather than the head.

"No. this is your punishment for disobeying us," the man said, and Tom could hear the laughter in his voice, the absolute mirth as he began to mutter a spell. "This is what you get for turning your back on your blood rights, for mingling with scum and dirt like her." He nodded towards Natasha, who was bloody and dead and still.

"Please," Tom murmured again, lifting a hand towards the Death Eater, shaking and shivering with fear. He wanted to die. "Please, please, just kill me. I can't do this without them."

"No," the man said again, "You get what you deserve, and you deserve to live, even if you did reproduce with scum. You're still a pureblood, after all."

And then Tom's whole world went dark as he slipped into a sort of sleep, head slumping against the floor, where he would continue to lie until the Death Eaters were done, leaving him to wake up to a broken home and the shattered, empty remains of his family.


End file.
